Leaving
by Snowballjane
Summary: Leaving is a curious way for you to love me. (Written for the iconography challenge).


Leaving: An Iconography Fic By Snowballjane  
  
***  
  
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell:  
  
God, in Paradise Lost.  
  
***  
  
The angelic choirs gathered before the throne, a shining and feathery throng. They lifted their triumphant voices in a clear, pure, wordless victory song of joy and adoration.  
  
The war in heaven was over and Satan and the other rebels had been cast out, cast down into the darkness to stew in their own misery, loss and anger. It was a time for celebration.  
  
So why did it feel like they were gloating? The dark-haired angel faltered in his singing and winced as his voice slurred off-key. He had never missed a note before. How could it be right to take pleasure in the pain of those lost angels? All they had done was to question the order of things - and really wasn't that order rather questionable if it allowed the possibility of such horrific rebellion?  
  
He tried to rejoin the song, but found that he choked on its sentiment. Every time he tried to glory in their success, he was flooded with thoughts of his Fallen comrades, now lying in black despair.  
  
He slipped away from the congregation, his back row position making it easy to escape, although he had no idea where he was heading.  
  
MY CHILD  
  
The voice stopped him dead in his tracks.  
  
"Lord," he answered, dropping to his knees and bowing his head. "Er, Beloved Lord."  
  
LEAVING IS A CURIOUS WAY FOR YOU TO LOVE ME.  
  
"I was not seeking to leave your blessed realm, Lord."  
  
Oh really? Actually, now he came to think about it, all he wanted was to get out. What had always seemed perfection to him, was now stifling. Satan's blazing descriptions of "the tyranny of heaven" all made sense now. Emboldened by these new thoughts, he raised his eyes defiantly, even though there was no-one there to look at.  
  
"You let them fall," he said. "You should have caught them."  
  
THAT IS NOT FOR YOU TO DECIDE. THERE IS A PLAN.  
  
The voice sounded weary and a little sad, nothing at all like the exultant singing choirs now creating thrilling harmonies in the distance. But the furious angel barely noticed the tone, too appalled at the suggestion that he had been asked to draw flaming sword on his kin, just because it was in some Plan  
  
"Oh, I'm sure that's a great comfort to them." The sarcastic edge on his own voice surprised him. Never before had he deliberately spoken words he had not meant.  
  
THE GATES ARE THERE. YOU MAY USE THEM.  
  
Anger overwhelmed fear and sorrow. It made it easier to saunter through the gates with his head held high. His neck ached with the effort of not looking back.  
  
***  
  
It had taken a very long time, but he had, somehow, found another heaven. It was a heaven with only one angel, but it did have good restaurants, interesting music and stylish clothing - none of which could have been said about the first heaven.  
  
The burning indignation that had seared his soul more than 6,000 years earlier had been slowly cooled by a hundred thousand drunken arguments on the subject of Ineffability and Plans, each debate infinitestimally less angry than the last.  
  
And now Crowley was walking out of this heaven too. He didn't see that he had much of a choice in the matter.  
  
It had given him the fright of his extremely long life when the Metatron materialised in his passenger seat and announced, in tones not to be argued with: "We have to talk."  
  
Quickly followed by a high-pitched: "Eek! Drive safely, you idiot demon."  
  
"I'm not getting involved in any more Apocalypses," said Crowley, deliberately swerving into the on-coming traffic to help himself regain composure.  
  
Metatron cleared his throat awkwardly. "It seems that our agent in London has been engaging in a little extra-curricular activity," he said in his clipped cut-glass upper class accent , his eyes squeezed shut as the Bentley zoomed around the North Circular. "He was spotted directly and deliberately encouraging sin. Explain this."  
  
"And I would know about this because.?"  
  
"Because you appear to have been providing miracles, demon," sneered Metatron.  
  
"Ah."  
  
"So, explain."  
  
"Well, the work got done didn't it?"  
  
"Aziraphale has gone too far. If this continues he will be cast out."  
  
Crowley swallowed. He had always dreaded his own side finally cottoning onto the Arrangement but had to admit that he hadn't given a great deal of thought to how Heaven might decide to handle the matter. Still, it was rather surprising that they had come to see him, rather than hauling the angel in for interrogation.  
  
"Then when are you talking to me rather than him?" he asked.  
  
"Give us some credit Crowley. We've learned a little about psychology over the years," Metatron sighed. "Just leave him alone, he doesn't want to Fall."  
  
Neither did I.  
  
After Metatron vanished, he kept on driving through the night. It was the joy of a circular road that you really didn't have to think about where you were going, you could just put your foot down and feel the warm wind rush past you as you traced the perimeter of the city.  
  
None of it was fair. Never had been fair.  
  
For a while he considered driving straight to Soho and asking Aziraphale to make the choice for himself. The only problem was, he wasn't certain which would be worse - watching the angel choose eternal damnation or hearing himself rejected.  
  
Da- Bless it. For all his hoity-toityness, Metatron was right. And the only way of truly ensuring that the angel was safe was to clear out of town. It was a big planet -- there was no need for both of them to be in London. With any luck Aziraphale would take enough offence at his departure not to come looking for him. And if he did. well, there was always Hell.  
  
As the sun came up, Crowley drove home sedately and started packing. It didn't take long. He took the Da Vinci sketch down from the wall and tucked it into a small black knapsack, along with the plant mister. There was nothing else he wanted to keep.  
  
Except, of course, for the one thing he could no longer have for fear of destroying it, of hurting him beyond all repair.  
  
The words came back to him across the millennia. Leaving is a curious way for you to love me.  
  
And then he left.  
  
The End 


End file.
